There's an interesting and potentially very useful series of discussions going on this week in northern Ontario.
Women in Crisis Algoma is hosting workshops for police and others in authority.
This room is full of police officers, lawyers, social workers, and health care providers.
They're learning from a clinical psychologist, Dr. Lori Haskell, that the brain works differently after a traumatic event such as domestic or sexual violence.
"Police have said to me ‘we've been trained, if something is really clear and then really fragmented and sketchy, that means the person, this is the information where a person has probably lied.’ And that's exactly how the brain encodes it. It super encodes and then as the brain continues to be flooded with adrenaline; it can fragment the person’s memory. That creates inconsistencies." said Haskell.
Sharon Reid is the director of community relations and finance for Women in Crisis Algoma.
"We're always trying to work from the perspective of survivors. And trying to make people understand why sometimes their stories don't make sense, whether it's domestic violence or sexual violence, and how the brain understands trauma." said Reid.
Dr. Haskell says something as simple as how a question is asked can make it easier for a victim to recall information.
"What are you able to remember? What's your experience been like? So, making it more general, allowing people to start where they are. Some people may remember it as a sensory fragment. They might not be able to tell it as a narrative for quite a while. In the past, that's been considered they just be hiding something, so this is a really key movement." said Haskell.
Local officers say understanding the science of trauma will allow them to put more triable cases together.
"It's very important because we know the majority of cases of sexual assault are not reported. The better investigators we are, the more information we have the better we are to support victims in our community." said Detective-Inspector Monique Rollin, of Sault Ste. Marie Police Service.
The trauma-informed justice system workshops are being held until Wednesday.
